Karzai declared winner of Afghan election

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Incumbent Hamid Karzai is the official winner of last month's
historic Afghan presidential election, the body organising the vote
said.

For the past three years Mr Karzai has led an interim government
installed after US and Afghan resistance forces overthrew the
Taliban militia in late 2001 for refusing to hand over al-Qaeda
leader Osama bin Laden.

The advent of democracy in this Islamic central Asian country,
after a quarter century of war, was hailed US by President George
Bush as a foreign policy success as he campaigned for re-election
himself.

But Mr Karzai's triumph has been soured by the kidnapping last
week of three UN election officials.

Yesterday, an Islamist militant group that has threatened to
kill the Filipino diplomat and women from Northern Ireland and
Kosovo extended a deadline for its demands to be met as
negotiations continued with Mr Karzai's Government.

Armed with a mandate from the people, Mr Karzai can now form a
cabinet of his own choosing, though his choices will have to be
ratified once the National Assembly is established after
parliamentary elections due in April.

His victory had never been in doubt, but counting the votes from
the October 9 poll took several weeks and the election commission
had also to assess a report given by a three-man panel
investigating allegations of vote fraud.

The panel delivered its report on Tuesday and concluded that,
while there had been shortcomings, including cases of ballot
stuffing, the irregularities had not affected the overall
result.

After a news conference given by the British, Canadian and
Swedish panel to explain their findings, a United Nations spokesman
said the results would be formally certified later yesterday.

Mr Karzai won 55.4 per cent of the vote, obtaining the simple
majority needed to avoid a run-off against his nearest rival.

He is still dependent on nearly 28,000 US and NATO troops to
guarantee security and fight an insurgency in southern provinces by
remnants of the Taliban.

A US-trained Afghan National Army is in the making. Currently
over 15,000-strong, the plan is for a force of 70,000 troops by
2007.

US policy towards Afghanistan, heavily influenced by Mr Bush's
Afghan-born ambassador to Kabul, Zalmay Khalilzad, revolves around
Mr Karzai forging some semblance of unity in a country riven by
sharp ethnic divides, highlighted by election results.